Game On: WiFi Router Tips For An Optimal Gaming Experience

Back in the day, a gamer put a game into a console and played away without a care in the world. There weren’t internet connections to worry about because it was all stored on a disc. As basic as it was, it was an excellent way to play for hours without suffering from modern problems.

Today, gaming is about downloading a game and storing it on your PlayStation or Xbox. To do that, it’s essential to have an internet connection or else the experience won’t work. Without a wifi router, your options are limited nowadays. While it has provided people with greater experiences, it also takes away from it in some instances. Lagging or buffering has to be the perfect example.

There’s nothing worse starting an adventure only to have it cut short by a spinning wheel of death. Not only is it annoying, but it impacts your stats on a game you’ve worked hard for, so it’s almost like a waste of time and energy. Because an online experience should be seamless, it’s time to take a look at your router and its capabilities. Here are the tips which should help to boost performance.

Change Packages

The first thing to remember before you try anything else is that your package may not be up to scratch. Some people will say you should leave this until the end, yet there’s no point. If the provider doesn’t offer the best deal, the alternative is to move on to something bigger and better. Yes, it can be tough to tell, but all it takes is a bit of research into what you are getting and what the competition is offering.

Www.optimum.com/ has plenty of options for gamers. The two worth considering are the Optimum 300 and 400 packages. The former powers up to fifteen devices and provides players with a quality multi-gamer experience. The Optimum 400 is a super-fast internet connection which can handle as many as sixteen devices and more. With either of these, there shouldn’t be much buffering or lagging once you’re online.

Lay people may not know how to find the best deals on the market, which is why comparison websites are very handy. Www.whistleout.com/ offers info on everything from wifi speeds to tablets, cell phones, and TV providers. And, it does it from the east coast to the west and the cities and towns in between.

Turn On QoS

QoS stands for “Quality of Service,” and it’s an inbuilt feature which prioritizes one user other another. Consider you’re at home and want to play on the laptop, a desktop of PlayStation. But, your partner is trying to watch Netflix because they can’t stand gaming. In theory, it should be easy to stream movies and TV shows while playing on Red Dead Redemption 2. However, the Netflix app takes up a lot of bandwidth and stops the console from getting the data required.

This is where the QoS feature comes into play. By playing with the settings, you can ensure your game gets the juice it needs regardless of what else is going on in the house. In short, you get priority.

According to www.makeuseof.com/, there are two ways to do it: by the device or by the application. The former is by far the easier one to set up as all you need is the IP and MAC address as well as the hostname. Then, the router will recognize the traffic coming in and out of the device and reroute it accordingly. With the application option, you need to figure out what port regulates traffic for your console, which is far more complicated.

Or MU-MIMO

Get ready for this one because it’s a mouthful. The term stands for “Multi-User, Multiple Input, Multiple Output,” and it’s very much like QoS with a few differences. In general, both try and put the gamer first by allowing you to up the data to a preferred device. So, if anyone is using Skype to call a friend or downloading a movie, your game won’t buffer.

The difference is that MU-MIMO creates multiple mini-networks rather than serving one at a time. Usually, the router will have to deal with each one at a time rather than multitasking. Thanks to the multiple user, input and output strategy, your separate server will get a nice slice of the pie. Typically, this means there’s enough power to keep all the devices on one network working without interruptions.

Www.networkworld.com/ has thirteen things you need to know, but the main one is it doesn’t support an unlimited amount of devices. A multi-user MIMO tends to have a limit, and that’s around three or four depending on the quality of the connection. Still, it’s a lot considering there are only two people in the house. How many electronics do you and your partner need?!

Opt For Ethernet Over WiFi

Everything is connected to the internet via wifi these days, which is why gamers assume it’s the default option. However, some services may not be able to reach the advertised speeds due to interferences. There are lots of speed and latency issues that come with gaming over wifi, aren’t worth being cable-free. Instead, it’s better to hook up an ethernet cable and increase the amount of power through the box to the console.

With a gigabit ethernet port, it’s possible to receive as many as 25 mb per second. As long as the package can handle this demand, which it can if you choose a supplier, you should be able to game unobstructed. Gigabit wifi does exist yet it’s tricky to get the proper speeds because the same issues still exist.

There is one problem: connecting it through different rooms. Not everybody has their TV and console wrapped up in a neat little bow, so using hardware is fiddly. The solution is powerline adapters as they let you transfer data from one socket to another. Learn more about these kinds of adapters at www.pcgamer.com/.

Setup A New Wifi Channel

What they don’t tell you about a remote connection is that the channels overlap. It can happen on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, yet it’s a common feature of the 2.4 GHz model. And, considering the majority of homes use this frequency, the odds are high that you’ll suffer from bandwidth and latency problems. Of course, an easy solution is to upgrade to the 5 GHz model. Compared to the other one, it has an extra twelve channels which don’t overlap.

However, it’s quite new technology and it isn’t available everywhere across the country. Those that live in remote areas, or places where wifi doesn’t have the investment, will only have one choice. What should you do in this situation? The answer is to analyze the network you are currently using. By doing this, it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out which channels clash all of the time. Then, you can pick one that doesn’t and your lagging problems should become a thing of the past.

As with all things new-age, there is an app which will take care of the analysis if you don’t know where to start. There are plenty of incredible ones, but https://lifehacker.com/ recommends the WIFI Analyzer as it’s free and effective. Just hit up the relevant store on your device to find out more.

Turn It Off And On Again

This is straight out of the “Dad Handbook” for technologically illiterate people, yet it works. Sometimes, routers aren’t great at handling data and need to reboot to restore their settings. This is particularly true of gamers with old routers which don’t have as much power. Anything from a freezing situation to a sudden drop-off is fixed by pressing the small button on the side of the box.

Although it seems counterproductive, it’s not because a reboot may keep the connection fresh and uninterrupted. Let’s face it – it isn’t as if you have much to lose. The link will be back online within a couple of minutes and you’ll be ready to play again on your laptop of device of choice. All a gamer has to do is make sure they’re not online during a scheduled reboot or else they may lose their data.

Without getting too technical, the best option is to purchase a programmable timer switch. Simply plug it into the router and it will take care of the automatic reboot.

Extras

Another feature also worth considering is RAM and CPU. They are the two things gamers think about most regarding a device, yet they don’t have the same importance with a router. The truth is, both of these are essential because the connection has to handle tones of data on a daily basis. So, you need to increase RAM and strengthen the CPU signal to ensure there are fewer disruptions.

Gaming should be fun and it shouldn’t make you more anxious than when you first log on. That’s not very relaxing, which is part of the reason people love it period. Hopefully, these tips will put the enjoyment back into the experience again.